Saturday, May 6, 2017

Last week was our very last felting craft night! All during the month of April, every Wednesday night at 8pm CST, me and a group of many others, learned the fine art of felting. I've had so much fun sharing my fibers hacks and learning from all of those who joined the fun. You can still participate and purchase supplies here as all the LIVE videos are archived both on my YouTube channel and on my Facebook page. For our last night, I shared how to create a palette hair clip. This one was created by Charlene @artteacher. Here's the video of our session together:

This week, we began a new creating adventure: working with clay! We explored Celluclay, one of my favorites. We are working with this kit (but you don't have to purchase to join the fun). We have been spending the first 20-ish minutes of our session just chatting all things art teacherin' and clay. Then we explored the medium together! You can see what folks are creating (and share your creations as well) by using the hashtag #creatingwithcassie.

So to wrap up our fibers fun, I thought I'd share what we created. Shout out once again to the amazing Sue Bunch for creating those kits and joining our live sessions. You are a rock star!

I love the incorporation of embroidery with this needle felting. Maddie created this blouse that looks like it is straight out of Anthropologie.

Desiree's sparkly woodgrain on her palette was so creative. I loved seeing everyone's spin on their palette hair clip.

Seeing photos of everyone's creation throughout the month of April really did make me so happy. I loved that folks got to experience something that I truly love. Look at all of this beautiful felted goodness!

Biggest heartfelt thanks to all of you who have been joining our live chats. We hit our 25th chat recently and it made me so happy...spending time with my favorite folks is something I look forward to all week. Thank you!!

Sunday, April 30, 2017

Hey, y'all! I'm sad to say that last Wednesday was our last #creatingwithcassie Facebook LIVE craft night for felting. I chatted about Fashion Felting and will share a blog post about that super soon (I'm a pinch behind...as per usual). The previous week, we ventured into Sculptural Felting and I shared the basics on how to needle felt little creations...while creating this penguin whom I've named Pepe le Paint...or something. Here's the video from our live creating session:

I've done a ton of needle felting but I've never taken it to the third dimension. Sue sent me a bunch of samples to share with y'all to serve as both ideas and examples of what can be created by needle felting.

Sue created the cardinal, the penguin and the cat. I'm currently working on a ton of felted cacti which I'll share with you real soon (if you follow me here, you can catch some one-minute how-to videos). By the way, Sue has a great YouTube channel with a ton of felting videos. Check it out here!

Now, I mentioned that this past Wednesday was our last craft night for felting. For the month of May, we are moving on to CLAY! We'll spend the first half of our craft nights as we used to do: sharing tips and tricks. So come prepared to talk shop about clay, both kiln and no kiln fire. Then...we'll create! You can use ANY clay you have on hand or you can purchase your clay kit right here. You can also find out more details on what we'll be up to right here.

Now, let's check out this gallery of awesome folks who have been felting along with me. Seeing the work of other folks has really made this experience the best for me...it's one thing to share your love of a craft with someone via a blog post or a video. But it's entirely something else to create live along with people...and see what variety of creatives there are out there. THANK YOU AND HUGS to everyone who participated either live or after the fact, shared their creations and their enthusiasm. Y'all are the best.

And a BIG shout out to Sue at Back to Back Fiber for helping to make this possible. She's still selling felting kits if you are interested!

I love two things: the color pink and otters. So when I saw Chapin's @chapin.schnick creation, I was so excited. The cuteness!

Rachel's @mrsp_art penguin with it's little waving flipper is so fun. What a great idea!

This rainbow bird by @echopaitsel looks so cute on display in this Easter grass.

Y'all. Heather's felting game is STRONG. I think this would be a fabulous project for kids!

BB8 for the win, kids! How is this our first Star Wars felted creation? Ima need more where this came from. Megan @mrs.dunstan you get a slow clap and a hats off from me, sister!

Amber @amberakes created the next two felted pieces. I really love how she blends the roving. It gives her pieces a painterly effect.

I could see this on the back of a clutch, couldn't you? So pretty.

Stay tuned for one more needle felting wrap up from our craft nights. If you'd like to be featured here, just use #creatingwithcassie on your preferred social media outlet. Now, go stab something, y'all!

Monday, April 17, 2017

If you've been hanging around this here blog for a bit, then you know I've been hosting a weekly craft night right here with the focus being on felting. In order to lead the craft nights the best that I can, I've been pushing myself to explore the one area of felting that I'm not super comfortable with: wet felting. Y'all know I'm all about the needle felting...but this wet felting stuff is a bit of a learning curve. So far, I've wet felted a beaded necklace, a clutch and now this matroyshka doll. Here's how:

One thing that you have to commit yourself to when it comes to wet felting is that it is time consuming and requires patience. This is not something you can rush. The felting process takes time...in fact, it took me probably 45 minutes to an hour from start to finish to complete the wet felting process. After drying out over night, I was able to start needle felting.

This also proved to be pretty time consuming...but I do love needle felting. That being said, I had originally planned to make another doll to fit inside this one...but I don't know if I'm ready to make that kind of time commitment!

Like I said in the video, when I started needle felting, I didn't go into it with much of a plan. I really wanted to focus on the patterns on the clothing: dots, stripes, flowers.

The beauty of needle felting is that it really helped to form, shape and stabilize the doll. I was concerned that when I removed the wooden form, the entire doll would collapse but it remained relatively solid...but the needle felting really proved to make it solid.

Now, getting the diameter of the opening of both the top and bottom of the doll did prove to be a little tricky. To make them the same, I did have to do a lot of needle felting around the rim of both to get them to be the same width.

Creating the flowers and patterns was really my favorite part.

I thought the doll should be wearing an apron which is why there is a blue tie in the back.

After felting the doll, I realized that I could felt around any number of objects floating around...so when I spotted Easer eggs at the grocery, I decided to give them a go! I know y'all probably have a ton around your house too. This is a much quicker wet felting project then the doll, that's for sure. Here's a quick video on how I did it:

I've got a lot of felting videos currently up on my YouTube channel that you might want to check out. I've also been posting one minute felting videos on my Instagram if you are interested.

I totally had intentions of needle felting the other egg as well...but that went out the window with the second matroyshka doll. On to the next best thing!

Looking forward to seeing you all this Wednesday at 8pm CST for our next craft night right here!